Oscar Piastri knocked out in Q2, qualifying 13th in Mexico City
NXTbets Pro | Published On: November 1, 2026
Piastri fell
Piastri’s day ended with a setback in Mexico City, where McLaren’s driver went out in Q2 and qualified 13th. The result came after a mixed build-up for McLaren at the high-altitude circuit, where the team spent FP1 on tests and experiments with reserve driver Leonardo Fornaroli. Piastri opened the day eighth in FP1 and followed that with 10th in FP2, then entered qualifying. He did not find it when it mattered. Piastri called his soft-tyre lap “scruffy” and “pretty messy,” then said the session was “bizarre” after a fresh set of soft tires gave him “no grip.” A mistake at Turn 7 forced him to abort his first lap on new tires in Q2, and he said the balance of the car felt completely different after he abandoned one late run before failing to improve on the next attempt. Piastri said he was “not sure what happened” and added that Ferrari looked “very strong,” while McLaren looked “okay” and still had plenty to learn before qualifying. His focus now shifts to Sunday, where he said he will try to make up positions and get into the points.
Norris sixth
Lando Norris kept McLaren in the fight longer, even if he did not leave qualifying fully satisfied. He was second in FP2 behind Charles Leclerc and topped Q2 for McLaren, giving the team a brief lift on a day that kept swinging between promise and frustration. Norris then missed out on a front-running spot in Q3 after a mistake on his final lap left him sixth on the grid. He said McLaren were “too slow” and that he could not repeat a “magical” Q2 lap in the final phase. Norris also said the car was difficult to put together lap by lap, with the team losing time “every corner.” He put that loss at about two-tenths in the first three corners alone. Norris’s comments matched the split picture from McLaren’s day, where the pace showed in flashes but never held together through the whole session. The result left him with work to do from sixth and Piastri starting farther back, a tougher launch point for a team that struggled through qualifying.
McLaren struggles
McLaren left qualifying with its worst performance of 2026, a sharp downturn after a day that began with experimentation. Piastri’s pace was uneven from the start of the day, and Norris showed enough speed to hint at more, but neither driver put together a clean final segment when the grid positions were decided. That left McLaren with a difficult read on its place in the field, even after Norris’s strong Q2 effort and Piastri’s early top-10 results in practice. Both drivers came away with the same message for Sunday’s race. Overtaking would be very difficult. That makes the starting positions even more important, and it leaves McLaren facing a race in which track position and tire management will matter from the first laps. Piastri said his goal was to recover and try to get into the points. Norris, who starts sixth, also knows the margins will be tight if the team cannot find easier ways to pass. On a demanding Mexico City circuit, McLaren will need cleaner execution and more consistency than it showed in qualifying to turn a frustrating Saturday into points on Sunday.
